State Department to reevaluate ban on travel to Libya

March 21, 2000
Web posted at: 7:03 p.m. EST (0003 GMT)

In this story: Bombing victims' families briefed 'Change can now be imagined' RELATED STORIES, SITES

From staff and wire reports.

WASHINGTON -- The United States is sending a State Department team to Libya to determine if travel restrictions on U.S. citizens should be lifted, the State Department says.

A statement from department spokesman James P. Rubin said that following the visit, the State Department will decide whether to remove restrictions on "the use of U.S. passports for travel to, in or through Libya."

Washington has banned use of U.S. passports for travel to Libya since 1981 on grounds that conditions there are unsafe for Americans. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright renewed the ban last November.

Susan Cohen, a parent of one of the victims of the 1988 Pan Am 103 bombing, said she was told the visit will occur on Wednesday and that the officials will spend about 26 hours in Libya. Cohen was one of about 15 parents of Pan Am 103 victims briefed by the State Department regarding the visit.

The flight blew up over Lockerbie, Scotland, in December 1988, killing all 259 people on board and 11 on the ground.

U.N. sanctions were imposed to force Tripoli to hand over Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi and Lamen Khalifa Fhimah, the two Libyan intelligence agents indicted in the bombing. U.S. investigators charged that Fhimah, posing as an employee of Libyan Arab Airlines in Malta, had obtained luggage tags that enabled Megrahi to place a suitcase containing a bomb on board an Air Malta flight that connected with Pan Am 103.

The U.N. sanctions, which included an air and weapons embargo, were suspended last April after the two men were handed over for trial later this year at a special Scottish court in the Netherlands.

Cohen, of Cape May Court House, New Jersey, said she was appalled by the decision to send the U.S. team to Libya. "This sends a signal to (Libyan leader Moammar) Gadhafi that we've changed our policy and we're ready to be friends," she said.

Rubin said the consular visit "is unrelated to the trial of the suspects of the bombing of Pan Am flight 103. It does not represent any change in the United States government position on the bombing or the need for full Libyan compliance with U.N. Security Council resolutions."

The Security Council has called for Libya to pay appropriate compensation to families of the Pan Am 103 victims, cooperate with the investigation and trial, accept responsibility for the actions of its officials and "renounce and end support of terrorism and terrorist groups."

Rubin said increased non-American travel to Libya since the suspension of U.N. sanctions last year has raised questions about whether previous dangers continue to exist.

"We believe an objective answer requires an on-the-ground examination by consular officials," he said.

The announcement comes amid signs that Washington is softening its policy toward the oil-rich North African country.

"Change can now be imagined," said Ronald Neumann, a top aide in the State Department's Middle East bureau last November. But, he said, an accommodation with Libya "is not necessarily a near-term likelihood."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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ArabNet - Libya Government
CIA -- The World Factbook 1999 -- Libya
U.S. State Department - Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs
United Nations

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